


starborn

by kittymills



Series: Sheith Snippets [9]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Fluff, M/M, One Shot, Post S7, SHEITH - Freeform, cononverse, keith's birthday drabble
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-23
Updated: 2018-10-23
Packaged: 2019-08-06 10:14:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16386026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittymills/pseuds/kittymills
Summary: i just really wanted to write something small for Keith's bday and Joking5 gave me a prompt so i just busted this out in a rush because his day is almost over here





	starborn

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rubyneko5](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rubyneko5/gifts).



> i just really wanted to write something small for Keith's bday and Joking5 gave me a prompt so i just busted this out in a rush because his day is almost over here

The party has been in full swing for hours by the time Keith slips away. It’s the night sky that beckons him, a quiet little tug on the space on the inside of his heart that has him silently climbing the darkened stairwell and pushing open the dinged metal door with a quiet grunt. The door had always been on the heavy side, even back when he was just a cadet but after the galra occupation, it was more difficult to move than usual.

A familiar shape perches in the distance, a mop of hair like his own and long, lean limbs drawn up.  He slides down beside her, letting his boots hang off the edge. Down below, there’s a broken path of weak lights that lead between the barracks and the main control and there’s a few small figures out enjoying the balmy night. They’re too far away to see properly, just small shapes in the moonlight and Keith can’t tell if they’re human or alien.

“I still remember the night you were born like it was yesterday,” Krolia says to him with a rueful twist of her lips. Kosmo sprawls out beside her and she scratches his belly absently as she talks. “You were so small and you were early, always one to do things on your own terms.”

Keith finds himself shifting uncomfortably beside her. He’s heard a version of this story before, but only from his father. It’s hard not to think of him tonight, with the sparkling night sky above them and his mother beside him and another year notched under his belt. Lance had cornered him earlier and thrown an arm around his neck.

“So, with that time on the space whale, how are you now, anyway? Like, technically?”

It had been a question he’d not paid much thought to before. “Ah, twenty-two, I guess? How long were we in space?”

“Are you asking me to do math? Because you know how well that will turn out. Especially with this knock off version of nunvill that Coran’s cooked up. Woowee, does it pack a punch!”

“Why don’t you ask Pidge? I’m sure she can work it out for you.”

“Ohh, I remember that. ‘Leave the math to Pidge,’ he says, ha ha, that’s funny.”

“No, you’re just drunk.”

“Probably,” Lance laughs then thumps him lightly on the shoulder. “Happy birthday, man. Glad you crashed Shiro’s rescue all those nights ago. Who knows where we’d be right now if you didn’t?”

It didn’t bear thinking about.

He wouldn’t have lost one parent, only to be reunited with another. Wouldn’t have been the leader of Voltron either. Wouldn’t have Shiro back. Wouldn’t have an entire room of friends and found family twelve floors down celebrating the fact he’d even been born.

“What would you have done if I looked more like you?” Keith asks then, and it’s a question that’s always burned somewhere deep inside of him but never seemed to be important enough to bother with. Not in light of everything else that had come to pass.

Krolia turns to give him a small smile. The glow of her eyes flash even in the darkness. She’s beautiful, Keith thinks absently. He had never realised galra could be beautiful.

“I’m not sure,” she tells him after a moment, a flicker of something that sounds like surprise in her voice, as though it was a thought that had never occurred to her before. Maybe it hadn’t.  “But we would have found a way. We would have done anything it took to keep you safe, Keith.”

“He used to tell me stories about you,” Keith says quietly. He tears his gaze away from her face and raises it to the smear of stars across the sky. Shooting stars were more common now than ever, left over parts of debris from the battle with the galra falling into the atmosphere and burning up like tiny meteors. Keith still found himself wishing on them, a habit he had since he was a child.

“He used to tell me crazy things, like how you came from the stars and your hair was purple and how you were tall and brave and could see in the dark as though it was day… I used to think it was just things he was making up.” Keith shakes his head and tears prick behind his eyes. “I got so mad at him once. I thought he was lying. But he wasn’t.”

“Oh, Keith,” his mother murmurs and then she raises one arm to curl them around his shoulders and draw him close and he tucks his head under her chin and burrows in close. It doesn’t matter that he’s a grown man in his own right now, he would always still need his mother. “I’m sorry I had to leave you.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” he says quietly. Her heartbeat is under his ear and the beat is so different from a human it makes him have to concentrate hard to follow it. It’s vaguely unsettling, but she’s warm and smells in a way that tickles his deepest memoires and it makes him think of safety and warmth.

“I miss him.”

“He was a good man. He would have been so very, very proud of what you’ve become, Keith.”

“I hope so. I was so mad at him. For a long time. I was mad at both of you.”

Krolia doesn’t respond but her arm around him tightens. It’s not the first time they’ve had this conversation, long, empty days and nights on the space whale over those two years had let them talk about almost everything.

“When you were born, we discovered that human formula wasn’t enough. You were hungry all the time, we couldn’t satisfy you. But your father… He came up with the notion to create a bone broth. That did wonders and you loved it.”

Keith wrinkles his nose. “Um. Gross?”

Krolia chuckles. “I’m sure to you now it sounds unappetizing, but for a galra-human hybrid, you needed more than what your earth milks could offer. Your father may have saved your life with that.”

“Still gross.”

“Gross, but something to keep in mind should you find yourself a father in the near future.”

Keith’s cheeks heat. “Mom, that’s…. that’s not going to be a problem. Ever.”

“No?” she says innocently. “And what makes you so sure? Soon the universe will be safe, you may want to settle down. Start a family-”

“Mom, seriously.”

Krolia chuckles again and they watch as a flash of light streaks across the distant sky.  “Perhaps you should tell him.”

“Tell who?” he says, a moment too late when his mother turns to him with a flat expression.

“My son is not an idiot,” she says to no one in particular. “But sometimes I wonder how he can be as dense as a neutron star.”

Keith rolls his eyes. “He doesn’t see me that way,” he mutters and he tries to convince himself it’s okay.

Krolia hums noncommittally and they turn back to the view over the desert that surrounds the garrison’s base, enjoying the quiet murmur of the wind as it brushes past.  Keith wonders if the party is still going, or if it’s starting to wind up when he hears the crunch of gravel under a boot from behind him. He doesn’t have to turn to know it’s Shiro advancing but he looks over his shoulder and smiles anyway.

Shiro approaches cautiously, a wary look in his eye as he spies Krolia.

“I hope I’m not interrupting?”

“Not at all, Shiro. I was just about to leave.”

They climb to their feet and Krolia gives him another hug that he accepts gratefully. She kisses his head and murmurs a quiet “Happy birthday, Keith,” into his hair and then with Kosmo at her side, she’s melting into the shadows and leaving him alone.

Alone, with Shiro.

Shiro who eyes him now with a small curve against his lips and one hand behind his back.

“You know, you’re not exactly subtle with that glowing shoulder anymore,” Keith tells him, turning back around and going to take his seat at the edge once again. Shiro’s human hand snags his wrist before he can go far.

“Worried you might get caught up here with me?”

“Hardly,” Keith answers dryly. Shiro still hasn’t taken his hand away from where it curls around his wrist and it’s warm and comforting and strangely unsettling. There’s an expression on his face that’s thoughtful but still guarded. A little bit sad.

He wonders if Shiro had been visiting the memorial again. 

“Shiro, are you okay?”

In lieu of an answer, Shiro draws him away from the edge and closer to his chest. Keith has to concentrate not to stumble, his legs not quite keeping up with his thoughts under the look in Shiro’s eye.

“You were supposed to save me a dance.”

“What?” Keith blinks after a moment. “I thought you were joking.”

“I wouldn’t joke about that.”

“Dancing?” Keith has to lean back to see Shiro’s face properly. The moonlight shines on the silver of his hair. Sometimes it still made him double take when he saw it, but it was a reminder of everything he’s endured, of everything he’d fought through to be where he is today and Keith kind of loves it.

“Yes.”

“Not really my thing. Especially not when it’s Lance choosing the music.”

Shiro’s lips twitch at that.  “It’s your birthday, I wanted to dance with you. Since I wasn’t able to get you a real present.”

“I don’t need a real present. I don’t do… stuff.”

“I know,” Shiro laughs then. “Most difficult person to buy for, ever.”

Keith shrugs. “I already have everything I could ever want.”

It takes a long moment for Keith to realise that Shiro is still holding his wrist when his fingers shift and then Shiro’s palm is sliding over his own and their fingers interlock. It feels so foreign and so new but so right too.

“Everything?” Shiro asks softly. “You wouldn’t ask for anything else?”

Keith’s breath seems to be getting tight in his lungs. Shiro steps close, so close that Keith can feel his breath on his cheek and see the way his eyes glitter in the darkness.

“What do you want your real present to be, Keith?”

Something about the darkness makes him brave. Or maybe it’s the way the callouses on Shiro’s palm rub against his own. A flash of light streaks again through the sky, like a falling star that disappears over Shiro’s shoulder and he finds himself making a wish that feels like it just might come true. It makes him think absurdly of the night Shiro’s pod crashed to Earth. The night their lives where set in motion.

The night that Shiro had come back to him.

“You shouldn’t ask questions you aren’t ready to hear the answer to,” he says. His voice sounds so rough in his ears but he’s having trouble concentrating on anything other than the way Shiro’s human hand fits against his, or how his new Altean palm rests against the small of his back in a way that speaks more of lovers than of friendship.

His heart starts to thrum a little faster.

“Like I said before. What do you want your real present to be, Keith?”

The night goes still and even though they’re away from the edge, Keith feels like he’s on the precipice of something big. One step and he could be falling.

He tightens his fingers against Shiro’s, gasps when Shiro draws him in and their chests bump together. He experiences the light vibration of the laugh inside Shiro’s chest and the way his lips land in his hair.

All he has to do is take that step. Take what he wants.

“Tell me,” Shiro says again and another shooting star blinks in the night. He swallows roughly then draws his head up, searching out Shiro’s soft gaze in the darkness. It’s everything he’s ever wanted and nothing he could have imagined all at once. And it’s his.

“You,” he breathes.

Shiro smiles, a slow curve of his lips that hide the small exhale he releases. It occurs to Keith then that Shiro may not have been expecting his answer.

“I was hoping you’d say that,” he answers quietly and then Shiro’s lips are on his and Keith can’t think of anything much else at all.


End file.
